


Whispers

by Maldoror_Chant



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Lemon, M/M, POV Duo Maxwell, Timeline What Timeline, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2020-04-07 06:12:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19079134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maldoror_Chant/pseuds/Maldoror_Chant
Summary: By MaldororDuo plays a very dangerous game with a sleeping Heero. Shinigami enjoys dicing with death, but how long can he keep on winning?





	1. Whispers...

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dacia, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [A Little Piece of Gundam Wing](https://fanlore.org/wiki/A_Little_Piece_Of_Gundam_Wing), which closed in 2017. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after July 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [a little piece of gundam wing collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/alittlepieceofgundamwing/profile).
> 
> Author: Maldoror  
> NOT A RAPE-FIC or anything overly perverted - big thanks to some of the reviewers for pointing out that the first half of this chapter can certainly look like something much darker than I intended -.-u  
> Rated R. Probably way too high a rating, but there's some ‘suicidal behaviour for kicks' attitude which might worry some parents...  
> Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing characters, or any other anime characters for that matter (sigh). I'm using them here for the sheer fun of it, and am not making any money off of them in any way. 
> 
> Duo plays a very dangerous game with a sleeping Heero. Shinigami enjoys playing with death but how long can he keep on winning?

I awake in silence, as always. Heart pounding, scream caught in my throat. As always.  
  
I hate it when we have more than a few days between missions. It's been five days now since our last fight. I am Shinigami. I live, breathe, thrive on death. Keep me away from it too long and things get ugly. During the daytime, my antics go up a notch until the others are ready to strangle me. Sometimes I make them laugh. Sometimes I end up with a gun or katana in my face. The rush is the same for death's favourite jester.  
  
At night, though... when I'm not sleeping the sleep of the righteously exhausted, that's when the nightmares start eating me alive.  
  
I stare at the ceiling without seeing it. I could take the pills. These aren't little itty-bitty nightmares about creepy-crawlies or the monster under the stairs. These are the full-blown results of psychosis, the legacies of my unusual childhood and upbringing, and Dr G is well aware that they could tear my mind apart. Hence the pills.  
  
I haven't taken them in awhile though.  
  
If he knew that, he'd be mad.  
  
If he knew what I was doing instead, he'd be _furious_.  
  
I let my head turn slowly on the pillow. The other bed is faintly illuminated by a streetlight further up the road from the safe-house. My instincts tell me it's three in the morning. He was working for twenty hours straight before hitting the sack two hours ago. He'll be fast asleep.  
  
Better than pills...  
  
Duo the jester smiles, but it's Shinigami who slithers out of bed without even disturbing the sheets. The floor boards are cold against the balls of my feet. I'm sitting on my haunches, balancing my weight, pulling stealth mode over me like a cloak.  
  
It's not like I'm harming him. In fact I think Heero would be the only one of our elite little group to understand why I do this and not mind. I mean, he'd still kill me. But it wouldn't be personal!  
  
I know this because I know why he spends hours on strenuous physical activity, pounding his body into submission when we don't have a mission planned or things have been quiet. He's not trying to keep in shape, oh no. As if he needs to, my body adds coyly, hoping my mind will replay some of my favourite Heero-home-movies I keep locked away in my brain, stashed right next to my libido. No, the perfect soldier isn't working on those muscles. He's got his own childhood demons to tame, before they rise up and make him hit that self-destruct button again.  
  
I shift on the balls of my feet, rising smoothly, half crouched and balanced, lowering my centre of gravity to give me utmost control over the movement of my legs. My senses concentrate on the sensations in my soles, feeling for the slightest shift in the wood below me, ready to draw back before a gentle creak can get me killed.  
  
I take a step. As I shift, the light of the streetlamp curls around the slat of the shutter like a tongue licking lips. There is no movement from the bed beside the gentle rise and fall of his chest.  
  
I have to be extra careful tonight. There was a slight possibility a mission might come in at any time the slight flicker of the lit laptop near his bed is the only other source of light, it's turned on waiting for that call. So his daily workout wasn't too strenuous. His sleep will be lighter.  
  
I shift my weight again, ever so slowly. My legs feel and compensate for any slight give in the wood, and I take the next step more silently than a ghost. I move into the danger zone. I have to trust my legs to do some of the work automatically now. I am concentrating elsewhere.  
  
My breathing slows, smoothes, and falls in synch with his. I love this part. It feels strangely... intimate. All extraneous movement of arms and upper body are ruthlessly suppressed. Heero is a coiled spring, a minefield, a hair trigger. Even slight changes in air pressure around him will set him off.  
  
He shifts slightly, but I know his sleep patterns better than my own, it's normal movements. It was a gentle shift of the arm, not a twitch. That means he's not paralysed in REM yet, he's still hovering at the brink of dreams. But his respiratory rate is too high for delta, which means he's in transition, light sleep.  
  
My mind tells me this is a stupid time to do this. My adrenaline tells my mind to screw it and get ready for the ride.  
  
Another step, slowing even more. Continents move faster than I do, but then they're big and tough, they can afford to take risks. Me, I'm frightfully aware of my own mortality right now. The god of death feels his life beating through his veins, chasing away the last dregs of the nightmares that pursue him. I grin in complete silence.  
  
I'm moving into the killing zone now, a few feet away from him. If I'd screwed up while in the danger zone, he would have woken up but probably not moved, trying to analyse the threat he'd sensed. It's happened before. And because I know him better than he knows himself, I had sensed it and managed to ghost away, back to my own bed, before he figured out what had woken him. Hmm the rush. Getting back in bed swiftly and silently and then seeing those blue eyes crack open just a slit, puzzled, wary, sweeping the room and his apparently sleeping roommate before closing again, the hand drifting away from his weapon.  
  
But now I'm in too deep. If he wakes now, he'll have his gun out and centred between my eyes before he even opens his. He'd probably squeeze the trigger before he sees it's me. He'd probably squeeze the trigger _after_ he sees it's me. Well yeah, I don't have any illusions on that account. A slight bitterness there, but I'm realistic. Even when he's wide awake and in perfect control and we all know how much he gets off on control- he still has that cannon of his pointing between my eyes at the slightest provocation. And boy do I like to provoke him. It's a wonder I'm still alive, especially with my little nighttimes stunts.  
  
It's bizarrely comforting to know that the war is not what is most likely to kill me. It's as if it reinforces my invulnerability. OZ soldiers? Don't make me laugh! I stalk Heero Yuy as a nightly pastime and I'm still sucking air! Those uniformed clowns don't stand a chance.  
  
Oh, why am I doing this, you wonder?  
  
I'm up against the bed now. He's on his back, his head slightly turned away from me, one arm up near the pillow the right hand, three inches away from his gun- the other is loose by his side. His face is almost at peace, he actually looks his age. The night is hot, he's in boxers and t-shirt, the sheet pulled down to his thighs. I don't lick my lips because of the slight rasp that might make, so I hope I'm not drooling. Now I know why my body was making me go forward when my head was telling me to wait for deeper sleep, or maybe tomorrow night, or maybe never again and get out while you can.  
  
I loosen my muscles. The forced relaxation makes me feel as if I'm floating next to him. I can't afford a creak of muscle or sinew at this point.  
  
What shall I do? I can ghost my hand above that smooth hard chest not touching of course, I'm not insane! A slow gentle movement an inch away. He won't let anyone get that close to him when he's awake without all his defences crashing into place. I wonder if the others notice, the way he ducks and weaves away, always keeping a back to the wall, a hand in clear reach of his gun. He knows where each one of us is at all times; his senses are like a spider web reaching out around him, tingling with our voices, our movements. When someone gets into the danger zone, he knows it. He scowls or snarls or walks away, if he can. If proximity is needed, he allows this. But if you get into the killing zone... Each touch he allows at that point is a bonus, and you're risking your life and limb. He won't actively try to kill us most times, he's got that much control over his inhumane reflexes. But the possibility is there, and it's a good chance.  
  
I almost snicker and also seethe- when I see Relena try to grab his arm or cling to him. I feel sorry for her too. He's so far removed from her. She thinks she's making contact. He's trying not to kill her. She thinks she's being nice. He's being dragged over red-hot coals, and at any moment she could pay the price. They're on different planets.  
  
I'm from Heero's planet all right. Just a different country. I don't shun contact, I thrive on it. Which is why my hand is drifting out, across forbidden frontiers and a palpable no-mans-land, to ghost an inch over his thigh.  
  
I am also a killer, and a hair trigger. A touch is also a potential threat to me, and has been as long as I can remember. But I am Shinigami. I don't tame and bind down the beast within me. I feed it. I taunt it. Until I can unleash it and let it kill.  
  
My hand stills. It was barely moving anyway, to avoid any shift in pressure, any breeze. Heero has sighed, twitched. My heart tries to speed up but I won't let it. I can't afford an increase in breath rate or even body heat right now.  My lungs ache, my mind hushes, my body floats as I push myself into that space where I barely exist, where my presence is so diminished I dissolve into the night. It feels... liberating. Heero relaxes again as I drift into full stealth mode. But he's slightly more... tense than before. My mind swims back to the shores of the dark sea in which I am suspended, and tells me to retreat.  
  
But I want to do more. Once I even brushed those bangs a hair's breath away from closed eyes. Granted he'd come back from a three day mission with two hours sleep under his belt and was practically clinically comatose at the time but I clutch the tactile memory to me as closely as my cross.  
  
Why do I do this? Why do I fall towards him like I'm swept by vertigo towards an abyss?  
  
My stilled hand above his thigh drinks in the warmth from his skin.  
  
Because the rush I get from this helps put the nightmares in their place, reminding me that they can't hurt me as much as those steel fists can? Yes.  
  
Because somewhere in my manic mind and heart, I actually have deep feelings for him? Because I want to touch him, really touch him and not have him recoil, and this is as close as I can get? Yes.  
  
Because I am only alive when I am walking side by side with death, dealing it and risking it in equal measures? Yes.  
  
I lean my body back slightly and take a drifting step sideways, closer to the head of the bed. Heero is still again, muscles relaxed, only the soft sigh of his breathing disturbs the air. It's like a hurricane compared to my movements. I should leave. I don't. My ritual isn't finished. I need to circle him, approached him several times, like I'm stalking death, courting it, dancing with it. And I also have to creep up to him and listen.  
  
It probably won't do any good tonight. He's not in deep enough sleep to be dreaming, except light inconsequential visions darting across mind and eyelids, not stirring the deeper pools of the consciousness beneath. But I still have to go and try to listen.  
  
He talks in his sleep you see. He'd have Dr J give him electroshock treatment if I ever told him this; what a bonanza for OZ interrogators otherwise. But I won't tell him or his master, and it's not like he's really talking anyway. His lips hardly move, his voice is silent. It's just a simple modulation of breathing that whispers words into my ear, a few inches from his lips. Sometimes I feel his breath on my cheek and I burn inside.  
  
I'm not eavesdropping. This may seem strange, but if I could actually understand what he said I would hardly do it anymore. But the son of a bitch always dreams in Japanese. He's probably doing it on purpose, I grumble in my mind. But I'm relieved too. Heero is the one person whom I respect, and as I don't have a very good opinion of human beings in general, that's saying a lot. I'm a thief but I don't want to steal secrets from those lips without consent. I just like hearing those unspoken words drift like ghosts from his mouth. Sometimes, I feel like I'm a confessor sorry for the blasphemy, Sister, Father, but I think you have so much more to forgive me that this harmless little conceit won't stop you praying for me, up there. Yes, a confessor, who accepts the burden of the whispers of pain without needing to understand them, and, forgiving, takes them away. I would like that...  
  
My breath, still in synch with his, is so shallow now, to avoid the whisper of it on his skin, the sound of it sighing in his ear, that I'm almost dizzy. My entire body nearly spasms when he moans.  
  
It's as soft as all the rest of his night time noises, but it's a definite moan. My first rush of heartbreaking sympathy _its ok, Heero, it's ok love, no more nightmares, no more bad dreams_ \- crumbles as I realize this wasn't that kind of moan. Nope, not even close.  
  
I glance down. The yellow light from outside the window, hacking through the slats in the blind, offers slices of Heero to my eyes. A piece of his cheek below mine is visible. There's the slightest hint of a blush there.  
  
And I'm glad. Unconditionally. Because I know him. I've watched him so often, so closely, awake and asleep, that I know the perfect soldier gig is as much Heero as a shell is a part of the snail. It's part of him, he would die without it... but it's also the protection around something deeper inside him. Something that will strangle and die if it doesn't have the occasional gentle dream or erotic fantasy.  
  
But of course, there is part of me that, while rejoicing that my soldier is not having nightmares tonight, wishes I could do more than witness this dream. Wishes I could be a participant...  
  
Hell, I wish I could be a participant in the real thing of course! But I live in the real world. And it's time I got back to it, pronto. He's more deeply asleep than I thought, but those kind of dreams can drag you to the surface in a hurry, especially a glance down past the length of his chest confirms it- when the body is also getting into the act.  
  
I start pulling back with the slowness of a glacier growing, when a breath that is almost a word caresses my cheek. He's still talking. Oh fuck.  
  
I hesitate, then pull back faster, as fast as I can. I don't want to hear this. That's right; rewind to what I was saying earlier about respect and not eaves-dropping. I meant it. I might not understand erotic Japanese mutterings but I could still understand a name, and I didn't want to. And also, it might crush me.  
  
He's not dreaming of me. But knowing who he is dreaming about would destroy me.  
  
I'm finally standing, looking down at him. I'm safe now, his non-voice is so soft I wouldn't be able to hear him at this distance. I can slow down and go back to the job of not getting killed.  
  
My own lips shape words that no breath animates. Sleep tight, babe. Pleasant dreams, whoever's lucky enough to be in them. Shinigami wishes he could kill that person by the way, but Duo won't begrudge you this.  
  
And then it happens. For the first time in all the months I've been doing this, an actual sound passes his lips. Barely above a heartbeat, a whisper of a whisper, but with all my senses screaming in stealth mode it's louder than a gunshot, and it stops my heart like a bullet.  
  
"Relena... "  
  
What? _What_?!  
  
Different planets my _ass_!  
  
I feel upset, betrayed, very, very stupid, and completely confused! My body jerks, and my finely tuned balance comes crashing down around me. I find myself pitching forwards, down towards the bed. I catch myself and my muscles screech as I jerk to a standstill a foot away from the death-trap that is his perfect body. I feel like screaming but the danger has me in full stealth mode and I should get away with my life and dignity intact, if not my mind or heart.  
  
I'm still upset. I take a breath, try to recapture the rhythm of his gentle respiration and straighten up, but much, much too fast.  
  
Nothing creeks, except maybe my back, and yet-  
  
There's a hand around my wrist. I didn't even see it move. It's on me like a bear trap and I am going nowhere.  
  
My eyes wild, still reeling from the painful shock and this new surprise, I turn to stare at him, expecting the muzzle of a gun and a final flash to put an end to my hunt, predator turned prey at last.  
  
He hasn't moved a fraction, apart from the arm now fastened to my wrists. His eyes are closed! This... this doesn't make any sense! His breathing... he's still asleep??  
  
All my finally tuned Heero-senses tell me he's still fast asleep, yet the arm gripping mine can't be a reflex. The gun beneath his pillow is a reflex, this is...  
  
His eyes open a crack. His breathing, his slight movements, the very looseness of his muscles, every inch of his body tells me he's asleep but his eyes have opened and are fastened on mine.  
  
The hand is like steel hawsers and is slowly reeling me in. My own body is wobbling with surprise and offers no resistance.  
  
My face is once more a few inches from his. My eyes are caught on his, as firmly as my wrist is caught in his grip.  
  
A breath trickles from his mouth, teasing my cheek, breathing two words in the Braille that needs all my senses besides my hearing to decipher.  
  
"Fooled you... "  
  
_How long..._  
  
I've been hunting his shadow for months now...  
  
How long as _he_ been stalking _me_?  
  
His lips curve in a small, triumphant smirk and the hand on my wrist continues to pull me in closer still... 


	2. ...of your name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: Maldoror  
> Rated R. This chapter probably deserves it... Hmm let me see, yaoi, 1x2. Don't like don't read yada yada  
> This is the citrus-flavoured chapter :) This is optional, if you don't like lime, you can skip to the next chapter and you won't miss much.  
> More of a lime than a lemon, but I think this suits the overall style of the story. This is my first ever, so I hope it's OK, and also a bit original.   
> Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing characters, or any other anime characters for that matter (sigh). I'm using them here for the sheer fun of it, and am not making any money off of them in any way.

He pulls me forward until my wrist touches the bed. My face is three inches away from his.   
  
My body compensates admirably, bringing my other hand down as slowly and unthreateningly as possible on his far side, keeping me balanced and ready for evasive action.   
  
My mind is less helpful; it's running around in little circles, yapping.  
  
 _Why- how long- what does he want- is he going to kill me? He would have already, right? Maybe he wants to do it slow- maybe he doesn't want to kill me- maybe he wants maybe-_  
  
Slowly, very slowly I see him tense. My reflexes are on hair trigger, but the movement is too slow to be threatening. I haul down on my own instincts, my own reflexes, before they make me run/fight. I have no illusions as to how that would end. I'm barely balanced, I'm still pinned by the wrist, he may be beneath me but he's got all his body poised and ready and I'm not. Besides, this is Heero Yuy, he can drive a fist through a wall.   
  
He's moving so slowly he knows the danger of startling me- that I take a moment to realize that the distance between our faces has dwindled. I freeze, my heart rate going up. He senses my tension. He moves faster now that I know what he's doing and won't be caught by surprise.  
  
His lips stop a whisper away from mine. And a breath, deliberate, caresses them.   
  
The room was hot and humid before, but now the temperature soars. Every inch of my skin prickles and starts to smoulder as that gentle breeze becomes more defined on my lips, blowing softly across the lower one, to the side of my mouth, curving like a touch to my upper lip before gusting out between them as they instinctively open (or maybe my jaw dropped in shock).   
  
O-Kay, now I know he doesn't want to kill me. At least I think...   
  
My mind is old and wise beyond my years; each loved one I lost and each murder I committed has hardened me like old wood. Do I want this, it wonders? I have an idea of what's being offered here. The enormity of this stuns me so much I can barely feel the joy I should. But now that my fantasies are becoming reality, do I really want to take the risk, the pain... ?  
  
Well, whatever my mind is saying, it's housed in the body of a teenager who's been celibate since operation meteor started. While my mind ponders the wisdom of burning my bridges, my body is dancing around a roaring inferno of bridge kindling, going “Whoohoo, get in there and get some!”   
  
I realize that his head has relaxed once more against the pillow and that my lips are a bare breath away from the pulse in his neck.  
  
I hesitate. My body's ingrained sense of danger is still making me weary. I'm still in stealth mode too, I haven't made a sound, my body is still poised and ready for action. My heart is beating so loudly I'm sure he can hear it, and my breathing has accelerated. But it's still in synch with his. Who is matching who? I can't say. I just imagine that shared rhythm accelerating faster and faster until we scream in unison...   
  
At the thought my skin ignites, and I'm sure my braid has caught fire.  
  
Heat seems to ripple from his skin near my mouth, and I can smell him and taste the vibrations of his heart beat through the breath of air that separates his pulse from my lips.  
  
I purse my lips and blow gently against that flutter under his skin. His entire body shivers, his eyes almost close and his breathing, suddenly severed from mine, staggers into a silent gasp. I draw the line of the artery to the base of his neck, then curl that little breeze around the dip in his collarbone.   
  
I'm inches away from his face again, waiting for his next move. I feel the iron grip on my wrist suddenly loosen, leaving small welts on the flesh. He doesn't remove his hand though I think I would have had a heart attack if he did- it's still circling my wrist, possessive, ready to dart forward again if I make a move away from him, but it's a hair-breath away from my skin. Then he moves the hand up, still curling around my arm but not touching as it slowly draws a wave of raw heat up my taut muscles.   
  
His hand twitches a bit, away from the skin and back again. Heero and I have infiltrated heavily guarded bases together, been in spots where a word would get us eliminated in four or five different ways, and a single flick of the fingers could mean the difference between killing and being killed. So I know what that small signal means.  
  
I obey that small flick and shift my balance slowly, still trying not to alarm him into killing me despite the invitation. I lean further onto the bed, leaning first hips and then legs and moving so that I'm crouching over him. My left knee settles into the covers on his far side so slowly the bed springs don't even groan. I look down at him in growing wonder, lying beneath me now, the shadow of my body falling on his under the blanket of street light falling from the window.  
  
In reward of my daring, his hand drifts up over my shoulder and, still with that whisper of air between us, ghosts down my bare chest and cups around my nipple. It amplifies the heat from my skin until I can't even tell he's not touching me yet. I throttle the scream rising from my tortured body. But still I hesitate to lean into that touch.  
  
His hand slips beneath my arm to run that sliver of a touch that isn't one over my side and my back. Tease.   
  
I grin like the god of death and slowly bend my arms and slip my legs back. I see that small triumphant smirk on his face widen a fraction. Hah.  
  
Piloting a gundam and rappelling up airshafts gives you a lot of upper body strength. I stop exactly where I want to, my chest and groin an inch from his and I stay there. My arms complain but that's nothing to the glare I get from those cobalt eyes staring into mine. I see his smile crumble as he licks his lips. Even the perfect soldier is feeling the burn.   
  
You're wondering what I'm playing at. Why I don't touch him when I have an erection the size of L2. I don't know. I'm afraid of taking that first step, that first touch. But I'm also teasing. Shinigami is put out that he was being the hunted and not the hunter tonight, he wants a little payback. And deep inside, Duo wants to know that this is not just a one-nighter, that this really means something before I seal my fate with a touch. Because I know Heero, I know what I'm letting myself into...   
  
The high from this new type of contest is making my head spin, and I know he's feeling the same. Time to take it up a notch, so we actually get somewhere tonight. Time to test the soldier's mettle - and maybe touch his true feelings as well, if I can, if I could ever... But right now lust is calling the shots, and I know what we need to tip the scales in this trial of wills.   
  
We're gundam pilots. The best way to get life-defining decisions out of either of us is to add two essential ingredients: danger and adrenaline.  
  
I rise slightly his lips form a snarl- and lift my right arm from the bed, into his view. I make sure he sees what I'm doing or the surprise will kill me. His eyes widen then narrow in warning, but I can see the gleam behind the warning, the tongue flickering over the lips again, he can feel it too, the way everything becomes clear, clean and present with our lives on the lines... The noise of my spring-loaded sheathe triggering yes, I wear it always, when I shower, when I sleep- is like a gunshot in the torrid silence. His entire body shudders as the knife hits my palm.  
  
 I bring the dagger forward slowly, keeping well clear of his throat. But that he's allowing me to live this close to him and with weapon drawn is already saying so much, and pushing me towards the brink of my decision. The razor sharp blade barely snags as it slides along the top of his thin t-shirt, slicing down into the cloth with little resistance. The shirt parts over a sinewy chest, scars picked out in monochrome in the night. Our breathing still in synch, like one body, one pulse- is now ragged and fast, our breath against each other's faces like burning urgent kisses. His eyes glow with adrenaline, excitement, lust and...   
  
I finally see it as the knife cuts through the bottom of the shirt; that little light I've been looking for, that will help me take the plunge. Not affection, I don't know if he has any. But what's there is almost as good. It's fierce pride. We are teammates, partners. He's the perfect soldier and he's allowed me to work with him. He's proud that someone he's let this close to him has managed to stalk him, corner him, has managed to get to his level. Is suicidal enough to take a knife and cut away his shirt, for Shinigami's sake. Is daring to love him, to grab the risk with both hands.  
  
So I do. How couldn't I when he's looking at me like that. The knife tumbles from my hand to the floor in surrender as I lean forward, weaponless, and seal my fate with a touch of our lips.  
  
The floodgates crash open. Arms that could crush my ribcage like twigs grind me down against that perfect body, as his lips bruise mine, prying them apart. Teeth, tongue, lips clash, as if all the pent-up frustration is surging between them. Then he archs his back and rubs himself against my groin just so and I have to break off the kiss and take a huge gulp of breath before I pass out.   
  
He pushes me away, though he keeps his hands firmly on my shoulder and back, leans me back to sit on my knees. His mouth is on mine again as I feel his hands leave me, and I can feel him slip out of what's left of his t-shirt, then his boxers. His lips leave mine and his hands and mouth coat me in small specks of burning light from my neck to my navel. I feel him slow, then a gentle breeze agh, enough with the teasing!- blows down from my navel... to the waist of the shorts which was all I was wearing to sleep that hot night.  
  
The breeze tickles and blows, insistent. I reluctantly drag my hands away from his body where the little perverts were having a field day, to unbutton and yank down the aggravating piece of clothing. His hands continue to dance over my skin as if he was trying to put out the fires he set there, but he's only fanning flames.  
  
I'm suddenly still, my eyes dropping to those hands as the shorts drop from the bed. I realize something that makes the fire on my skin kindle in my soul.  
  
So gentle...   
  
He's being so gentle. My sex-obsessed mind hadn't registered that those hands that could kill me so easily were now brushing me like a hot summer wind. I'd always assumed that a roll in the sack with Heero would result in multiple contusions (and it'd be worth every one of 'em, was always my mental conclusion). As I watch those strong hands on my body, I sense tension in them, more than lust.   
  
Was that why he waited so long? Was that why he wanted me to initiate the first touch? Is he afraid of hurting me? He's always afraid of lashing out at those who wander into the killing zone.  
  
I lift a finger to his face as he lifts it to me, feeling my stillness. I caress the lips, the eyes looking into mine, nearly inscrutable. I trace the small ever-present frown lines away from his forehead.   
  
His hands slow on me as we realize that the tension is falling from them, the frown on his face slowly fades as he stares into my eyes. A slight surprise and uncertainty flash by in its place, then, I think, a calm acceptance that increases the fire in my heart and soul (and another less cerebral area).  
  
I'm not IN the killing zone anymore, am I, Heero... I've passed through it, and out the other side. I'm in a territory where no one has ever come before, I know that instinctively. It's terra incognita for both of us, and I remind myself that I have to be gentle too in exploring this new land together.  
  
The kiss we share then is the single sweetest thing in my miserable death-ridden life up till that point.   
  
We don't need more. Hell, the last few months have been foreplay! We don't need words either. A lingering sense of danger has us communicating with our hands and bodies only, as we infiltrate this new objective. On a more practical note, Wu Fei is sleeping about six feet away on the other side of a paper-thin wall, and the man sleeps like a cat and hates getting pulled out of bed. I am so not going to see this moment interrupted by a grumpy Chinese pilot with a katana.  
  
Heero eases me onto my back, and swiftly drags those so-gentle hands and mouth down to my navel and this time doesn't stop. I have time to wonder if you can have a heart attack at my age and then I can't think at all. The bed starts to burn, as warm mouth and tongue start licking and biting and teasing... My hands twist in the sheets and I know that despite his lack of experience in this matter and he's not doing too bad, considering!- I'm not going to last very long...   
  
Every inch of me is drinking in his touch, his mouth on me, the feeling of his tongue running up and down and up and curling... It's like going into full stealth mode, body dissolving, but it's not a dead sea that cradles me, it's a hot ocean of sensation and feeling and, underlying it, joy. I wouldn't be in this warmth if it wasn't this man taking me there. I wouldn't want it any other way.   
  
I dissolve completely, my body liquefies and seeps into his, into his touch, his mouth. I'm sure he knows my body as well as his own by now so he probably wasn't surprised. The room wavers around me as I open my eyes. One of my hands is knotted in his hair, the other in the sheets, and there's blood on my lip from where I caught and held my scream. A kiss, as wild and as salty as the sea, brings me back to the here and now. As I slowly return to myself I can feel his hands on me still, and tears sting my eyes at the touch, still so gentle...   
  
The next bit will probably hurt but better me than him. My mind tries to think whether we have some kind of cream or lotion in the bathroom but wild horses couldn't drag me from this bed right now. I want to give him what he has just given me. I'll take the pain and I'm wise enough to know that the physical pain is only the start if I ever want to continue trying to make anything work with the perfect soldier- and I'll take more, I just want to see that face lose its rigid lines, the ever present frown. I want to see those eyes wide with the innocence of complete bliss, the momentary absence of all thought, all memory, all pain. I want to do this for him, now.  
  
He uses our melded sweat and his own incipient release. He doesn't know enough to prepare me; if I'm ever lucky enough to do this again I'll have to educate him about some things... He leans into me, slowly, still gentle, and at the same time his body flows onto mine, as if trying to blot out the pain in my flesh with his own. Through the twinges, I feel his breath on my neck, just below my ear, he's breathing in our code, our voice of darkness. I distract myself from the ache by concentrating on that voice, it takes all of my knowledge of him, all of my senses to understand that whisper caressing my flesh.  
  
It's my name. Over and over and over.   
  
The pain fades as I feel that litany run over my skin, up my cheek, and into my lips as he kisses me and starts to move more freely. From the way his flesh is shivering beneath my fingers, this will be over soon as well.   
  
I take it all in while I can, the remains of pain, our synchronized gasps, the sensations, the hot and humid night air, the joy, the slashes of light from the shutter's slats, the feel of his lips, the gentlest creaks from the bedsprings, the knowledge of completeness of his body in mine.  
  
I drink in his eyes as he suddenly catches and holds in the moment, the second, the one pulse of pleasure that slips into the next moment of bliss... I hold him close, and I feel so privileged that he allowed me close to him in that moment when all defences crumble and the body is weakened while life thrums stronger than ever.  
  
Our breathing slowly returns to normal. Every inch of our skin seems to be touching as I hold him against me. My heart melts as I feel him slowly curl up, his head drops into the crook of my neck, the lashes of his eyes brush my cheek as they close. I'm drifting off myself, rapture and lingering pleasure ushering me towards pleasant dreams.  
  
I feel him tense. I knew it was inevitable. I sigh and struggle to sit up even as he does. I see him jerk a thumb towards my bed. I pick up my clothes slowly, trying to soak up the last second of our intimacy into my skin, then make my way to my cold sheets. We need to sleep, and Heero won't if someone's in his killing zone. That's just not going to happen, not even for me.   
  
I take a ten-second detour by the bathroom to wash off, but I'm quick about it. I'm actually pretty tired as well. I've not been sleeping well the last few days. And now... even with that cold jerk of a thumb as last contact, I think I'm going to sleep like a dream, a pleasant dream that doesn't know death, or horror, or blood, only a gentle touch and a whisper of my name... I'm asleep before my head touches the pillow.  
  
When the laptop gives its tinny little chirp less than an hour later, I have my gun out and trained on it and I swear I almost squeeze the trigger in pure hatred.


	3. ...of your touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author: Maldoror  
> Rated R. No lemon, but violence and language.  
> Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing characters, or any other anime characters for that matter (sigh). I'm using them here for the sheer fun of it, and am not making any money off of them in any way.   
> AN: I don't know if this is what people meant when they said they wanted a 'morning after' chapter. If they wanted kisses and cuddles and breakfast in bed, I'm afraid I screwed up... -.-u   
> SUMMARY (for those who skipped straight to chap3): Duo and Heero have just finished having a 'meeting of minds' (well not really, but you get my drift) and they're each back in their own bed for some peaceful much-needed sleep.

I'm asleep before my head touches the pillow.  
  
When the laptop gives its tinny little chirp less than an hour later, I have my gun out and trained on it and I swear I almost squeeze the trigger in pure hatred.  
  
Heero is sitting with the laptop in his naked lap before the thing stops beeping, fingers flying over the keys, eyes flickering, shards of colour from the screen reflecting in dark pupils as if the mission is scrolling directly across his mind.  
  
I'd twitched the gun away as soon as he moved, but I hesitate to put it back under my pillow. I thought I caught one of those shards darted in my direction. Either the perfect soldier is having 'morning after' blues _*hysterical mental laughter*-_ sorry or I'm also part of this mission.   
  
"So how's Dr J? Still brainwashing the wife?" My mouth picks up on my uncertainty and goes into automatic. After months of working with me, I know Heero can tune out my babble, it won't distract him.  
  
Heero puts the laptop back on the dresser and stands fluidly, turning towards me.  
  
"Mission objective is the base at point L141-V35. Pilot 01 to infiltrate, hack into mainframe, download data. Pilot 02 to infiltrate, plant explosives, destroy both data and evidence of download. Pilot 03 to provide cover and air support. Supplies of explosives?"  
  
"2 K M18, 200 grams C4, some grenades-" I answer promptly, and manage to stop Duo from adding 'and no regrets!' to the sentence. There's a mission on, and that's almost as important to me as it is to him, so I don't have the time to get my lights punched out now.  
  
He jerks a finger from me to the laptop then turns and starts moving. Still naked, but the look in his eyes stops me from commenting, or even enjoying the view. In three precise movements he has his gun, his back holster and his clothes in hand while I'm still struggling off the bed.  
  
He leans forward again and picks something else up, I see it out of the corner of my eye. I tense as he turns and takes three military steps in my direction. I'm suddenly staring blankly at the hilt of my knife in my face.  
  
I meet his eyes over the sharp metal blade he holds in firm fingers. The sudden intrusion of last night throws me. His eyes are blank slates, unreadable, he's scowling as I waste a precious second in hesitation. That scowl prompts my fingers to grab the knife automatically, and he's gone, heading towards the bathroom.  
  
Still on automatic I walk to the laptop, clipping the knife to sheathe on my arm. I lean against the dresser, hands on either side of the cold machine-  
  
\- hands on either side of Heero, lips and bodies inches apart, the air between us pulsing and burning like wildfire-  
  
I take a deep ragged breath, changing my position a bit to something not so charged with emotional memory. I take another breath. Damn you, Heero! You may be able to switch whatever feelings you have on and off and that's assuming you have any, and this wasn't just some kind of of _gentle hands_ \- no, I guess it wasn't 'just' that, but what you think it was- whoa, ok, no time for this now. Damn, I wish I _could_ shut myself off with a flip of a switch!  
  
I don't work like that. Though I sometimes think of myself as Shinigami and Duo, the god of death and Sister Helen's little orphan, in fact they are one and the same, one massive twisted paradox born of fire, blood and death. I can't turn either side on or off, though I can let one or the other to the front when I have to. But the other one is always there, two opposing currents dragging my mind into a whirlpool. I know this would blow Heero out of the water; how could I possibly function like that, he'd ask. He thinks in straight lines, hell, he makes his laptop's logic board look like a corkscrew. But I'm not like that...   
  
The thing is, it works. This chaos generates solutions and conclusions that occasionally catch even the perfect soldier flat-footed. At other times, though...   
  
Finally my tired brain flips out a few thoughts to anchor me back to the here and now.   
  
There's a mission starting, it's very time sensitive, I need to be one hundred percent.  
  
I don't want to lose that small light of- whatever, pride, respect, equality that I saw in Heero's eyes an hour ago.   
  
If I blow a mission, I'll be losing a lot more than that!  
  
I might like playing footsie with death but I don't have a death-wish unlike some people I know, and I really don't want to die anytime soon, not before I can find out what last night meant exactly to him, to me... .and see if maybe, just maybe, we might get to do it again!  
  
Time to concentrate and get cracking.  
  
My own fingers are already flying over the keyboard, part of my mind running through base schematics even while arguing with itself. Damn, she's a big one alright. As all my attention comes back to the task at hand, that part of my mind Dr G trained pops up and presents a tally.   
  
"I don't have enough bang to do it straight out." I say to the door opening behind me.   
  
"You have 2K of-"  
  
"Babe, Dr J doesn't want this place wounded, he wants it totalled! Half of it's underground, parts are reinforced." I feel a warm presence at my shoulder, looking over it as I fly through blue-prints. I ignore it. We both concentrate on the small window with the mission parameters flashing in one corner of the screen. Then I point to several key areas on the various blue-print windows I've tiled.   
  
"Suggestion?" Heero grunts.  
  
"I'll wire the MS fuel tanks here and here."  
  
"That will save you some explosives but-"  
  
"You'll have to start by hacking the fire doors to the underground rail system so that the fuel and fire will-"  
  
"-penetrate into the MS ammunition depot." Heero concludes. "I'll disable all fire systems, the heat should blow the depot. The MS rockets will take care of anything in a one hundred meter radius, however reinforced. That will avoid you having to go anywhere near the depot, it's likely heavily guarded."  
  
"Which gives me time to pack the rest of my 2K here, here and here. That will torch the Records building and labs."  
  
"But the computer room is reinforced as well. And it's our principal target" He's frowning in the light from the screen. I try to concentrate on the cold laptop and not on the warm flesh a few inches from mine. But I can't help noticing that there is a fraction less tension in him than I would expect, seeing that I'm right into the kill zone...   
  
"That's OK." I say, my attention back on the screen, the mission. "I'll cook up some party poppers with the C4 and plant those there while you're getting the alarms and fire-response off line." I don't like what my mouth is saying. I'm wiring the room where my lover is going to be working on hacking the mainframe... But I've already played the parameters of this mission in my mind a few dozen times, and I just don't have enough explosives to do it any other way, and no time to cook up a new batch.  
  
"Hn." Which is Heero for OK, agreed, well thought out plan, good job Duo! You takes what you can gets, as Solo used to say.  
  
I'm already hauling out the 'other' duffel from under my bed. Not the small one containing my clothes, weapons and a few knickknacks. The one that contains the highly-explosive tools of my trade. Yeah, I sleep over enough hi-ex to total three city blocks, and, most nights, I sleep OK. The smell of nitro compounds is my security blanket.  
  
Heero is downloading blue-prints to our Gundams so we can memorize them on the way over. I check the contents of my duffel and start sorting wires and packets of ex.   
  
"I'll go get Barton." Heero says over his shoulder, hitting the enter key.  
  
"Better you than me! Just make sure you knock loudly or you might barge into something steamy! I wonder if Quatre can blush so hard he might actually blow the veins in his cheeks. I've always wanted to sneak up on 'em but then Trowa would fold me into a pretzel-" I've been talking to an empty doorway for the last ten seconds but I'm still grinning and talking while my fingers start wiring fuses and packing the M18 and C4 into dead-bags. They're not that reactive, but when you're running around in a Gundam and getting shot at, you don't take the chance of plastique tumbling around the cockpit unless it's in isolating containers.   
  
I glance at the laptop one last time before I carefully haul my duffel onto my shoulder. The time lines J gave us are insane. I'm going to have to wire the goddamn C4 while in Deathscythe, at the same time as I memorize the base layouts.   
  
Two, three, four... There are at least four interesting and messy ways I can die in the next six hours. Suddenly I'm not so sorry I didn't sleep last night. Exhaustion adds another element of risk but if I'm gonna go, I'd rather do it with Heero's whispers of my name on my skin...   
  
I hear Trowa asking curt mission-related questions as two sets of feet run down the stairs. Careful not to bang my duffel on anything I run out to follow them.  
  
+  
  
I hate this.  
  
Getting into the mainframe was harder than anticipated. Getting through the perimeter at dawn was OK, we went through like a couple of ghosts gearing for a haunt. The electronics designed to keep us out surrendered gracefully to the Perfect Soldier. The human guards didn't even know we were there, but they were many of them and we had to avoid them all. Some of them will be dead in two hours, some of them will not, depending on their patrol route in and out of the blast areas. The sheer randomness of this brings bile to my throat but I ignore it. I'm familiar with the taste of death.  
  
I hate _this_ though.  
  
I'm wiring the mainframe with the C4. Heero is at the terminal screen, his fingers blurring over the keyboard. The hacker programs from his CD have downloaded now, and he's bypassing the inner ring of security measures. The mainframe is actually isolated from the outside world, it's a control server for the MS plant and research lab of the base. Not many firewalls can keep Heero out for long, but if the thing isn't actually connected to the rest of the world, you can only get to it if you're willing to get close.  
  
I hate this...   
  
\- I'm strapping explosives to the racks three feet away from my lover's head.   
  
\- The explosives are not on a timer, I have a switch, but I know that the mission timelines are such that I will hit the button as surely as the little mechanism of a clock would; there will be no leeway.  
  
\- There is enough time for Heero to crack the mainframe maybe- and get out maybe- before the whole base goes sky high _maybe_.  
  
\- But if there is any delay he will not leave this spot, this terminal, this desk where I'm wiring a fuse near his long legs until he is done, and then he'll upload the information via the wireless modem he's installed and he'll stay until it's uploaded and the Done message pops up or the explosives blow, whichever comes first...   
  
I really _really_ hate this.  
  
But I'm still doing it.  
  
"Duo." My head shoots up from under the desk and I nearly brain myself. This was the first word he'd said since the operation started.  
  
"The alarms are off." Now why was I stupid enough to think he was going to say something else... At least he used my first name. My heart does a double thump-thump as I realize that he's not called me Maxwell since last night.  
  
"The fire response system is on the same server, I'll have it off in an estimated three minutes. Get going. RV at gate four in one hour and seven minutes-" we'd already synchronized our watches "- hit the detonator no later than 0738."   
  
That meant a five minute lee-way between our meeting at the gate and armageddon. I find myself nodding. My howls of protest don't make it further than my chest where they sit and sulk and use my heart for a punching bag. I ignore it.   
  
I see Heero open a window on another monitor, checking on his programs chewing holes into the mainframe's security. He stares at it for two seconds then continues working on the fire-alarm system.  
  
"If you arrive with spare time, take out the guards between the Records building and gate four." He says. He hasn't looked at me once since we entered the mainframe room, even when I slipped between his legs to wire ex to the landline beneath the desk, insuring his modem and any traces of download are incinerated.  
  
"Anything for you, buddy." My voice is a whisper, though the room is heavily reinforced, sound-proofed and the guards in the security room are dead.   
  
I know why he's asking me to do that. He's estimated the time it will take to crack the mainframe, download the information and get out, and he thinks he's not going to have enough time to play dodge-em with the guards on the way to our RV. My heart takes another punch but I'm already moving, re-checking the straps inside my duffel, my weapons, the blue-prints in my head. The sooner I finish the sooner I can take out those guards. I leave like a ghost, my mind so full I don't even say anything to him.  
  
I just hate this...   
  
I'm still doing it.  
  
\+   
  
The mobile suits are frozen giants above us...   
  
Step, step, turn...   
  
I can't see what the fuss was about... J had learned that this plant had improved the operational efficiency of Leos by 20% or something. These were the improved models but they looked just like the old ones...   
  
Step, scuffle, fumble...   
  
I'd love to crack the hatch on one of these sad giants looming over me to see what his newly improved guts look like...   
  
Fumble, flick- I can't believe this guy!  
  
"Jesus, Jack, cut that out!"  
  
"Why, you going to report me?"  
  
"When you're risking MY ass smoking this close to a hydro-mix fuel tank, you bet your sweet ass I am!"  
  
"Fuck, grab a clue, the tanks are so well isolated that-"  
  
Turn, shift rifle...   
  
"Cut it out, Deckers, you know regulations."  
  
"OK, OK, she's out already. I swear, you two... "  
  
My blood pressure climbs down from the plateau Jack's lighter had sent it to. The fuel tanks are very well insulated, sure. The pack of M18 I planted a meter away from Jack is not so lucky.   
  
I ignore the scream of minutes slipping by. The third man had showed up unexpectedly, his patrol route had not been on our maps. He was now facing my escape route out of the wired hangar and didn't look like he was continuing his rounds any time soon.   
  
I was fast approaching a red flag on my internal clock that meant I had run out of time for him to pursue his patrol, if he was even going to. At that point I would have to risk slipping out, or I was going to have to kill these three guys without raising the alarm, or I was going to have to wait here for fifteen extra minutes before I hit the detonator and sent us all to hell and that last wasn't an option. I had to go clear the gate guards for Heero.  
  
I'm nearly in plain sight, though my black clothing blends into the shadows of the hangar's walkways and vents I'm clinging to. Humans have more animal instincts than they will allow for, I know that beyond sight and sound, my 'presence' might eventually intrude on them, cause them to shift nervously, to look around to try to define the prickle on the back of their necks.  
  
So I put myself elsewhere...   
  
I keep my senses on them but my mind drifts, my breathing and heart rate are slow, my muscles relaxed...   
  
... When Heero downloads that data I'll have to access it. 20% optimisation. Deathscythe, old buddy, compadre, how does that much extra juice sound to you, hmm?   
  
Shift, yawn... step, step, turn...   
  
The MS and gundams work on different systems but I didn't spend all that time working on my metallic 'better half' to not have picked up a few tricks...   
  
Step, step, scratch scratch,...   
  
Four minutes until I have to risk-  
  
Grunt. Hoist Rifle.  
  
"Say hi to Marla for me, Rich."  
  
"See you in two hours."  
  
"Sure."  
  
Finally! Rich's military boots ring like a tocsin on the metal ramp down to ground level . He's doubling back on his patrol route though. I see how many swearwords I can remember in Japanese, Mandarin and Arabic as I let him get a few meters ahead, relaxing my muscles...   
  
Now.   
  
I coalesce out of the darkness, falling limply from my hiding place to land in a silent crouch on the observation platform beneath me. My legs straighten slowly. I am behind Jack, who is looking at the fuel tanks morosely, probably waiting for his next coffee and ciggie break. My body falls into the next few steps with the best compromise between silence and speed. My rubber-soled boots fall precisely where I want them to, where they won't cause a shuffle against metal or the creak of the slats. Jack shifts. His partner, who is staring at nothing much on the other side of the platform with his back to me, yawns again.  
  
I'm a whisper, a silence, a cipher, a patch of nothing ghosting down the ramp to shadow Rich's slow footsteps out of the hangar. I leave Jack and his unnamed colleague to die in flame and fury behind me. OZ scum and human beings, we're all just these little paradoxes aren't we? No hard feelings, guys, you'd do worse to me. Enjoy your last twenty minutes.  
  
Rich breaks off to the left at the hangar door. I am a shadow within a shadow near a gangway strut, I knew before he did that he would glance back one last time, out of habit. Then his slow steps echo away and I've got five minutes to get to gate four and kill everybody there.  
  
\+   
  
I slither up to the guard post and freeze in horror.  
  
There's only one guard there instead of four. He's not lounging in front of his consoles, he's standing at the window saying 'Ed? Come in, Ed?' over and over in his communicator.  
  
He doesn't look alarmed yet but I know that will change.   
  
I already know what's happened, my brain working with the speed you gain when your life has been on the line more times than you've had birthdays, or even hot meals. The bloody patrol route map which sent Rich unexpectedly into my feet has sent someone over Heero's way, probably into the guard's room near the mainframe. We'd hid the bodies out of redundant precaution we're all too used to having the crap shoot of chance screwing us over and over again to take risks. But an empty surveillance room has brought the guards over to investigate.   
  
Heero has already switched off the alarms, that might buy us some leeway. If the alarms go off, then we've failed. The scientists in the lab will immediately break isolation protocol and will send an emergency transmission of the data we're trying to steal and destroy, straight to the OZ headquarters in Zurich. As it is, since they finished their research yesterday, they were going to present their report to HQ today anyway and send them the data in an official transmission. We have only twenty minutes before they do so, alarms or not. That's why the base has to blow before then, no matter what, or their completed data will be sent out of our reach, and new and improved Leos will be striding through the colonies in a matter of weeks.  
  
No matter that Heero has run into a pack of investigating guards and is now somewhere in those hallways, possibly fighting, possibly wounded, possibly-  
  
"Ed- Dammit, if you don't get onto the com now I'm calling-"  
  
I don't bother waiting to see who he'll call. He gasps as he sees me but doesn't have time to raise his rifle before I plunge my fist into his gut. He doubles over with a strangle gasp of pain and I hit him in the neck with my elbow. With a crunch of vertebrae he falls silent to the floor.  
  
The uninterrupted crackle of the communicator is music to my ears, it means Ed and company have run into the Perfect Soldier and are now pushing up daisies. But how long did it take him to get through them? I know he'll now be scouting the area, to be sure no other guard from their group is left to raise the alarm before we blow the base. He's cut the landlines by now, but the guys in the lab might have another way out for their data, we can't risk the alarm even now. Damn damn damn!  
  
I don't need to glance at my watch, I know there is less than seven minutes for Heero to get back here. I drag the man I'd taken out to the back room. Damn, his nose is bleeding, a red smear on the concrete. I'd deliberately taken him out bare-handed to avoid the mess my knife would have made! Uncooperative jerk. I waste a few precious seconds cleaning up the blood trail, I don't know who else is around and the alarm cannot go out now. Then I peek around the doorway. No one in between the guard house and the small inner wall that separates Records from the rest of the base. Beyond that I can't see. The mainframe and Heero are in Records.  
  
Five minutes to go before I have to blow the base.   
  
I know the blind spots of the lookouts at least if THAT information wasn't wrong and the cameras are already off, so I slither out of the guard house and crouch near an old jeep parked outside, scanning the area for patrols.  
  
Four minutes plus.  
  
I stand up and calmly walk towards the perimeter wall. My black clothes look like Spec Ops from a distance, and I know my body language, gait, scowl, everything, will peg me as such as well, as I slip into the role as easily and completely as I slip into stealth mode. I'm not as good as Trowa but I've still walked right past a few patrols and lookouts before with barely a second glance.   
  
Three minutes.  
  
I hesitate when I get to the wall. I can walk slowly- to the gate ten meters away or I can break cover and climb the wall. I _want_ to go and help Heero _now_. But I _need_ to make sure no-one sees me and radios in an alarm. At this point, they will not have time to do much about it but I cannot take the risk someone is faster than I think they are... I turn and walk to the gate in the inner perimeter wall. Heero had snapped the guard's neck on our way in, and hidden the body underneath the deep desk of monitors, but one of the patrolling guards might-  
  
Two minutes.  
  
-have left someone there to watch the defences. I step into the guard room in one smooth motion, drawing my gun and shooting the man hunched over the monitors before he can look around. The room full of electronic hum ignores the pfft of my silencer and the rag-doll noise of the man collapsing on the monitor desk. The monitors are all offline, a simple diagnostic program the man was running making no headway against the damage Heero has inflicted on the system.   
  
One minute.  
  
I look around the inside of the perimeter. No one. They must all be inside the Records building. Dammit Heero where are you?  
  
Forty five seconds.   
  
At this distance, I should be safe. He has to come through here to exit now, he wouldn't have time to make it over the wall. He has to make it at least to this guard station or he'll be in the blast radius and that's playing dice with death.  
  
Thirty seconds.  
  
I take the detonator from my belt, my thumb flexing on the button. I scan the empty space in front of me, in sudden fury. Damn it don't you dare do this to me!  
  
Twenty seconds.  
  
I know you've always got your finger an inch from the button! I've seen you hit it once, seen you almost die so many times, one more time is almost routine but don't make _me_ do it! Not now! Come on, perfect soldier! You still have enough time to come running out that door.  
  
Ten seconds  
  
One mad dash and you're with me in the guard room you're with me you're with me you-  
  
Five four three   
  
I am going to storm heaven and kill you, God, for making me do this-  
  
two one  
  
My thumb hits the button and I belatedly dive for cover as the silence is ripped apart. The windows of the guard's room shatter inwards in a graceful rain of glass, seeming to hold still for a trembling second before the second blast the MS fuel blowing- rattles the walls and sends the glass flying to the other side of the room.   
  
I'm on my belly, arms over my head and neck, just inside the door of the guard room. I listen to the crash of debris falling in the inside perimeter near the Records building which is gripped in a hurricane of fire and flying masonry. I feel like the calm at the eye of the storm. Dead calm. Dead.  
  
Our radio finally crackles to life. *Status?*  It's Trowa, breaking radio silence now that our presence here is obvious to anyone in a ten mile radius.  
  
"Is Heero at Wing?" I ask, my voice so calm. I know he's not.  
  
*... No.* That pause before the word is the one minute silence you give to fallen heroes. He knows what it means that I had to ask the question.  
  
"Get ready for air support, Tro, I don't know how quickly the military base at the airport near town will react."  
  
*They can get MS here in twenty minutes.* Trowa informs me.  
  
"That gives me fifteen minutes to look for Heero then." I snap. I make my voice as final as possible and amazingly enough Trowa doesn't argue. Heero has survived blowing up his own Gundam with him in it, there's no telling exactly what it will take to kill the perfect soldier. I just hope it isn't Shinigami.   
  
I have my gun in my hand as I run out of the guard room and back to gate four. Nothing inside the perimeter could have survived, now I have to hope he made it past the wall and I missed him. I widen the arc of my search. Debris smoke and hiss around me, the blast radius was wider than I thought. The reinforcements of the building had been crummy. More chances of Heero getting killed.   
  
I don't wonder what I'll do if I don't find him, or find his body. My life is not my own. It belongs to Deathscythe and the colonies. I don't own my death, I'm not allowed that luxury.   
  
I never explored the depths of my feelings for that silent man who would dare to let Shinigami get so close to him, who could apparently see straight past the jester mask when no one else could, who wasn't afraid of what he could see there. I don't think of it now. I'm not allowed that luxury either.   
  
So I don't think at all, just widen my search pattern further, and count the minutes that fall like scorched debris all around me, counting down to the moment I will have to leave.  
  
I twist into a crouch, turn and squeeze the trigger before my mind even registers the movement behind me. I manage to jerk the gun up and loosen my finger at the last possible instant.  
  
" _Fuck_! Heero, don't sneak up on me that like, I almost blew you away!"  
  
That wasn't what I'd wanted to tell him if I found him alive, but that's what came out.  
  
Heero frowns at me. "I wasn't- where were you when the explosives went off? Is your hearing impaired?"  
  
Damn, he's right. I do have a slight ringing in my ear, I was too close. He's not stupid enough to sneak up on-  
  
 _He's alive, he's alive, he's alive!_  
  
I straighten up swiftly. "Where the hell were you?!"  
  
I realize there's a trail of blood leading to a storm drain near the wall at the same time as I realize that there's a trail of blood.  
  
"You're hurt!"  
  
"Flesh wound."  
  
If someone ripped his left arm off or removed a kidney, he'd call that a flesh wound too. I give him a quick once-over. He has a deep gash in his thigh right under the spandex, looks like a bullet ploughed in and out again. It's bleeding a lot, but it shouldn't be fatal. The rest is a lot of cuts and bruises.  
  
His hand is like a vice as it closes on my arm, jerking my gaze away from his injury to stare into his eyes.  
  
"The mission?"  
  
I blink then gesture eloquently at the burning buildings, the wreckage, the secondary explosions. It looked like one very dead OZ base to me!  
  
"Was the timing followed?"  
  
Uh? I glance down, and realize that somewhere along the line, his watch had been smashed, probably against someone's face. He must have made it past the wall anytime in the last twenty minutes and then hit the storm drain to protect himself against an explosion that could come at any time.  
  
 _Was the timing followed... !_  
  
"To the fucking minute, Yuy!" My voice cracks as that last minute comes back to me. I wish I could drag that minute out back and shoot it in the head.   
  
But I'd hit that button anyway. I live, I fight, I kill, I die for my missions too, perfect soldier!   
  
He looks at me solidly. "Good. I was interrupted by an unexpected guard detail. I was afraid you might have been delayed by one too."  
  
Oh.  
  
"We need to extract ourselves from this situation now. Let's go."   
  
"If you mean we have to run like hell I guess I agree with you." I say to a spandex backside disappearing into the rubble near the gate with barely a limp. I run to catch up as I flip on the radio.   
  
"Trowa?"  
  
*Yes?*  
  
"We're on our way."  
  
*... Good.* I love working with these guys. It's like living in a crossword puzzle. What's a four letter word for 'Wow, he's alive, that's wonderful, Duo'?  
  
"We have ten minutes or so before company shows up." I shout to Heero. "You know, I think Oz just doesn't appreciate all the efforts we put into blowing up their research centres. They're kinda funny like that. Maybe instead of improving their Leos they should work on their sense of humour. I wouldn't blow up _that_ lab. I did hit the button on time." That last came out from behind the jester's mask and caught me by surprise.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
 "Th-thank you for almost _blowing you up_?! What kind of _sick_ -"  
  
"For last night."  
  
I'm back at Deathscythe before I can figure out what that means, what I feel about it, and above all, how to wade through the adrenaline, the anger, the remains of panic chocking my system, to find the right way of saying: 'Gee, no problem, is there a chance in hell we'll ever do it again?'  
  
He could have died today. We could be dead tomorrow. I accept that, I accept the pain, I accept the fact I will lose him sooner or later, I accept that I may even be the one who will pull the trigger. That's what he's really thanking me for. So, can we take what we can while we're still alive? Neither of us will let it become a weakness. So, can we... ?  
  
I'm not sure the perfect soldier is willing to make a habit of something so human.  
  
+  
  
"You're back!" Quatre bounces towards us like a happy puppy (well, towards Trowa really), as if he hadn't had his gun trained on the door when we opened it, ready to blow any intruder away with clinical efficiency. Sometimes, I think we're not normal teenagers...   
  
"Yeah, Q-man, break out the bubbly." No one else is going to answer him, that's my role in our twisted little sit-com. I toss off my priest's coat and start to talk, my usual little rambles. It doesn't hold a thimble to the way Trowa reaches out and squeezes Quatre's hand as he passes him on the way to the kitchen and the medical kit. Heero follows him.  
  
I talk and I talk. It helps me blow off steam, it reassures Quatre - and Wu Fei too, I know he's skulking around somewhere, letting the tone of my voice and the quantity of words tell him that the mission was a success and no one got dead. Q-man starts to grin, losing that slight pain in his eyes he has whenever one of us leaves the house with a chance of never coming back.  
  
"Maxwell, do you ever stop to take a breath of air?" Wu Fei grumbles from the door to the TV room. He has a book of Chinese poetry in one hand, his reading glasses in the other.   
  
"Nope, Wuffers, air is overrated."  
  
"Then choke up and die already." He snarls. He only glances at the kitchen, listening to the snip of scissors cutting suturing thread. Reassured, he leaves again. Back to his book of poetry, I guess. That is dangerous and unnatural reading for a teenager, and I tense my muscles to leap off the couch and do my duty of putting an immediate halt to such deviant behaviour.  
  
"Duo, you look shattered, get to bed. You can report later." Quatre has probably sensed my train of thought and is trying to derail it before things end in bloodshed.  
  
The amount of sleep I've had over the last two days is a sick joke. My body isn't laughing though. I grin at Quatre.   
  
"Geez, Mom, whatever you say, will you come and tuck me in? I'd love a hot chocolate before snuggling up with my teddy. I know it's a school day tomorrow, but can I watch a little TV first, pleeeease?"  
  
Q-man grimaces but he knows what I'm saying. I just killed a lot of people. Made a whole bunch of orphans. Sleep is for those whose conscience isn't bathed in blood and fire. He has to give me a few hours before I can cope with something as dangerous as sleep.   
  
There's a bit of a tightening in Quatre's eyes though. He knows that until I unwind enough to let my exhaustion pull me under, I'm going to be downright unbearable. I think I can almost hear Wu Fei groan from the other room (how'm I gonna get that book from him, without getting myself a brand new sword-cut... ) and Trowa sighs from the door to the kitchen.   
  
Well, that's what you get for having the jester on your team! I know that my sense of humour helps them get their sanity back when they return, bloody inside and out, from one of their missions; now it's time to pay the piper, baby! I wonder if Wu Fei would kill me if I somehow managed to set that book on fire while he was reading it. I wonder how much innuendo I can lay on Quatre about his love life before he understands what I'm saying and blushes beet-red, or before Trowa tells me to cut it out. I wonder-  
  
Quatre and Trowa are looking at each other with resigned airs, knowing what they're about to go through, so they don't see it. I'm slouching, my arm flung over and behind the top of the couch, my back to the kitchen door. Heero come out of the kitchen, heading towards the stairs going up to the bedrooms. He's passing me, waaay too close for Heero.   
  
Funny, my body didn't even react though I knew he was walking towards me. That's stupid, body! Heero is not immune to my pranks, though I might cut back a little since he's injured. But he could still be creeping up on me to stick his gun in my face and order me to shut up, or maybe just go straight to punching my lights out if he's feeling tetchy enough. He's also got his adrenaline running, and his demons have another bone to chew on, that's a lethal combo that he has to address somehow.   
  
As he passes, plunging me right into the kill zone, I feel something brush along my arm hanging over the couch. Not close enough to touch skin but a whisper of a caress that ignites it, his fingers drifting from the wrist all the way to the sensitive skin on the back of my arm near the edge of my tank-top's strap.  
  
My mouth runs dry and stops of its own volition.  
  
He's already passed me, and is climbing the stairs.  
  
Quatre and Trowa are staring at me in increasing alarm, wondering if I have concussion or something. Then Wu Fei's head appears in the door to the TV room, staring at me as well. I wasn't supposed to stop talking for at least an hour.   
  
I suddenly realize there's a better way to pass that hour, use up that adrenaline.   
  
"... You know what? I think I'll take your advice. I'm going to bed. I'll see you guys tomorrow."  
  
I ignore three stares on my back as I leap towards the stairs.

end


End file.
